Pull The Lever
by Celeste38
Summary: Casey may have been knocked out of the fight, but he woke up in time to witness tragedy strike the Hamato family along with the rest of them. The pain of their loss cut him just as deeply. (TMNT 2012-Casey's POV from the S4 Finale)


**This is just a little something I started writing after the S4 finale aired. I didn't finish it back then because I assumed there'd be a lot of fics like this in the wake of that episode, but I stumbled across the document today when I was about to work on a different project and had a strong urge to finish it. So, here it is! Please let me know what you think of it, enjoy! (6/5/17-Thank you "ladyoftheshield" for pointing out my goof and what I had overlooked near the end! The necessary adjustments have been made!)  
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Casey was just coming to when he heard Leo's bloodcurdling scream halfway down the alleyway.

His eyes fluttered open. It took a moment for his vision to come into focus again, but when it did he saw for himself what had prompted such a reaction from his friend. A gasp of shock caught in his throat, and he watched on in disbelief as Splinter's body struck the trash-littered asphalt with a sickening crunch not far from where he himself lay. Remaining still and silent.

"Come on, come on, get up…" The vigilante found himself murmuring as he hastily pushed himself up off the ground and struggled to stand up again on shaky legs. He wanted to run to the fallen mutant, but a wave of dizziness passing over him stopped him from getting far. With his eyes locked intensely on Splinter's still form, he reluctantly leaned against the garbage truck he had slammed into a few minutes earlier. His head was pounding fiercely. His entire body screamed in protest of every little move he made. There was a strong possibility that he had fractured or broken something when he had crashed into the side of the truck, but that was the last thing on his mind right now.

All he could focus on was the lifeless body a few feet away from him.

Still slumped against the truck, he tried to remain hopeful as the seconds ticked by. Holding his breath without even realizing it as he stared at Splinter. Waiting. Looking for any sign of life as he recalled that this wasn't the first, second, or third time that he had witnessed what seemed to be Master Splinter's death.

Maybe lady luck would smile on the mutant he had come to admire one more time?

" _Come on, Rat Dad…get up and shrug this shit off, just like you always do!_ "

The hope he was desperately clinging to faltered once he noticed his friends stagger out of the darkness of the alleyway. He sagged a little as he watched them approaching Splinter's still form with expressions that were at first hesitantly hopeful, but then slowly morphed into ones of devastated defeat.

Casey realized that this time, things were different. There was no Professor Honeycutt making a dramatic entrance, with a smile and an offered loophole to fix the catastrophe they had just lived through. Splinter hadn't disappeared from their sight, with hope lingering in his wake that he may have survived the encounter with Shredder. He could see the blood pooling beneath Splinter now. Far too much of it. He could see that the mutant his friends were now huddled around wasn't breathing at all.

Hot tears welled up in his eyes when he heard the chorus of stifled and disbelieving sobs from the trio. His heart ached at the way Donnie's face went from being completely shell-shocked, to crumbling in an instant with grief. Hearing Leo's voice crack with emotion as he pleaded for Splinter, and the way Mikey sobbed out a tearful 'Papa' as he held his father's limp hand, almost wrenched a sob past his own lips.

And then Casey's blood chilled when he heard April's murderous scream cut through the air from atop one of the rooftops high above him.

Drawing his eyes back upward, he watched with a numb sort of interest as Shredder screamed and fell over the edge of one particular building. Something dark and angry stirred within the boy at the sight. He shoved himself away from the truck, tripping over his own two feet for a moment as he scrambled away, and he looked back over his shoulder just in time to see the monstrous man slam heavily into the back of the vehicle.

For a moment, everything was silent and still. Then the haze cleared. Grief he wasn't ready to embrace yet was shoved aside by his steadily growing rage when he heard the groan of pain from within the garbage truck's trash compactor.

"That creep's still alive….," Casey hissed to himself. All he could see was red as he fumed over how disgustingly unfair the whole thing was. After everything Splinter had gone through, he died while the monster that tormented him for years still lived? "...un-freaking-real!"

As he stood there staring at the garbage truck, still hearing the sobs of his friends down the alley, half-aware of the glow in the sky above him from April's emotionally-driven powers, Casey realized what he needed to do.

His feet moved forward of their own accord.

Reaching out one gloved hand without a moment's hesitation, Casey took a firm grip of the lever he wanted and jerked it down. Watching with grim satisfaction as the compartment slowly closed shut, pushing Shredder's limp arm out of sight amongst the garbage bags. Soon, all he could hear was the sound of plastics, cans, glass bottles, and rubbish that the monster of a man was being smothered in slowly crushing together.

"Oops." Casey snarled over the noise, as he allowed a nasty smirk to slip onto his face. "How does it feel to get a taste of your own…?" His bravado faltered when he heard the muffled scream, and the humorless smirk quickly disappeared. The gasping cries of pain didn't bring him the twisted joy he was hoping for, and it was hard not to imagine the villain's bones crunching and snapping in sync with the trash the man was immersed in. The teen's gruesome imagination continued to flash the possibilities of what was going on inside the metal tomb he had trapped Shredder in, until the screams finally trailed off. Then the garbage truck fell silent once more.

Casey stood there for a moment longer. Listening for a sign of life from within the compartment, but hearing nothing at all. No. That wasn't true. He could hear dripping.

He looked for the cause, and noticed the shimmer of crimson leaking out of one corner of the trash compactor compartment. A small puddle was beginning to form on the ground beneath it, which brought a wave of nausea over the teenager.

Ripping his eyes away from the sight, Casey forced himself to turn and limp away.

As he approached his grieving friends, he watched April and Raph finally finish their decent from the rooftops and touch down on the pavement ahead of him. He watched as his best friend fell to his knees beside his father's body and began to cry. Watched how his friends reached out to Raphael, pulled him in, and clung just as tightly to him as they clung to each other and the body of their dead father on the ground between the four of them.

The smell of copper assaulted his nose.

The sound of everyone around him crying deafened his ears.

But it wasn't until he watched his friends, his brothers, somberly collect themselves and lift Splinter's body cautiously and respectfully from off of the blood-stained ground that he became blinded by his own unshed tears.

The dam keeping his own emotions in check began to crack, and it crumbled even more when April pressed herself against him and began sobbing into his jersey.

Wiping his eyes quickly, while putting on a brave face, he wrapped an arm around her comfortingly as the two of them followed the procession into the back of the turtles' van. After closing the double doors shut behind the brothers once they had all climbed inside, Casey paused for a moment. Pressing a palm against the metal, he exhaled shakily. Trying to blink away his rapidly forming tears. Trying to shove his own shock and grief back under lock and key so he could remain a sounding board for his friends.

"Casey?"

"I'm fine, Red." He assured her quietly, trying to avoid her gaze as he composed himself. Then he caught sight of his own reflection in one of the tinted back windows. He looked like he just gotten out of a rough game, and hoped that when he went home later that using that as his little white lie would fly as an excuse for his condition. After all, his father never paid any attention to the schedule for his team's matches. "I swear, I'll swing by one of the CityMD's on the way home and make sure nothing's too busted up."

"Oh, Casey..." April's small hands grasped his arm gently. Taking the reins, now she was the one to offer comfort. "It's okay…I know you loved him too."

The wall nearly shattered, but Casey managed to keep his composure.

He swallowed the bile in this throat at the sight of the bloody pavement and dripping garbage truck when he checked the van's mirrors as he drove off to take his friends home. He bottled up his tears as he helped his friends carry their father's body into the dojo once they made it back to the Lair. He didn't slip up at all as he mumbled his condolences and gave April a ride back to her apartment building.

It wasn't until he crossed the threshold of his bedroom back at his own home that the finally allowed his feelings to come crashing down on him, and he cried himself to sleep.


End file.
